


muddled colors and wishes on stars

by iavenge



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 12:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4607475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iavenge/pseuds/iavenge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s a spy, he’s a soldier. They were never written in the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	muddled colors and wishes on stars

**Author's Note:**

> my dearest friend decided not to give me a full lengthy soulmate au that i've always wanted because reasons. so i decided to take my own spin because i crave more soulmate au fics for romanogers. obviously, her writing is better than mine so let's just say i dedicate this to the lovely atlasky ;)

He woke up in the twenty first century, not expecting to find a soulmate.

 

That didn’t stop him from yearning and soughting after one. The white picket fence deep in the suburbs and creaking wooden floor with crusted paint peeling off the wall - he wants them, all of them. Even if he knows it’s impossible for a man like him to own one.

 

He’s busy fighting his own demons of blood and fallen bodies. There’s no one who’ll want a damaged soul like him, he thinks.

 

.

 

Love is for children.

 

That’s what they told her, what they programmed her to think.

 

And she believed it. The world is cruel, men are selfish and she didn’t do childish. 

 

Love is weakness and she’s courage and strength, not fragile and frail. _I'm made of marble._

 

No one wants a shell with no pearl inside anyways, she thinks.

 

.

 

He first met her in the helicarrier when the threat of an alien invasion hang on top of their heads. Fiery red. A gun strapped in her thigh. Black leather jacket. That’s all he remembered about her.

 

The color of her eyes was a mystery.

 

He wondered what shade of green it was. 

 

After all, green is missing from his list of colors.

 

.

 

She told him she could use some boost and as she show her his shield in his red, white and a color she couldn’t quite placed, she wondered if his eyes hold the same shade of blue.

 

The muddled-looking color must be blue. 

 

She’s never seen a shade before.

 

.

 

Then there was The Winter Soldier.

 

She tried to set him up with different people. He didn’t really pay attention to any of them.

 

His mind was occupied with her and how he wished she was his soulmate.

 

But he knew that love is for children in her opinion when they're both adults.

 

.

 

She underestimated him - how fast he would get attached to her.

 

As much as she tries to suppress her feelings, she knew it was lurking in the corners of her heart.

 

She also knew, however, that it was pointless. No matter how much she wished they could be together, she doesn’t deserve him.

 

She’s tainted in red and he’s shining in white.

 

There was never a way for them to be together.

 

After the fall of SHIELD, everything was a clean slate and they could’ve start over.

 

They didn't.

 

.

 

Life seems to be laughing at them.

 

Because the moment she needed to go, was the first time they truly touched. 

 

He sees the specks of emerald in her eyes and then slowly, his surrounding of trees are tinted green.

 

_So, she really is the one._ He thought. 

 

“Did you... see that?” Amazed, hesitating, but… happy, even when life is crashing down on him.

 

She didn’t say anything, though.

 

He stepped forward and made a way to pull her close.

 

But the playful mirth in her eyes are all but gone.

 

Cold, hard and calculating eyes. “No.”

 

A beat or two passed. He wasn't sure. His head is just filled with thoughts that she didn't want him and proclaiming that he was indeed a fool to think that a stunning girl like her would want a broken soul like his.

 

He's just a skinny kid of Brooklyn after all. Girls never went for him.

 

He awkwardly took a step back and ignored the cracking of his heart. He made an attempt to laugh as his world that was filled with hues of green are now back to muddled looking colors he couldn’t quite decipher and said, “Right, sorry. That must have been my imagination.”

 

.

 

_It wasn’t your imagination, Steve._ She wanted to say.

 

But her words are gone and her throat closes up at the image painted right in front of her.

 

Blue, his eyes are so blue, is now fading back into the muddle of colors she couldn’t pinpoint back then. His face contorted in anguish and she blamed herself for causing that to happen. But she knew this was for the best. They would never work out.

 

So, she left him. Leaving all that she know and all her heart to die in the middle of the graveyard.

 

.

 

The next time he saw her, she was with Bruce.

 

He wasn’t her soulmate, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the same for her after all.

 

He knew he was lying to himself to ease his broken heart, to ease the broken glass that is piercing his heart, when he saw her flirting with Bruce.

 

He thinks, if this is the only way to make her happy, then so be it.

 

Going over to Bruce who was now alone, he swallowed the lump that has formed in his throat and told him to go for her even when everything hurts. Even when all he could see was her playful smirks and mistaking every redhead he had come across as her and wishing he could see green once more.

 

.

 

Bruce didn’t want her. He wasn’t her soulmate after all.

 

She made herself believe that she and Bruce could work however, because they’re both monsters and Bruce understood her.

 

Bruce left her. But fate decided that she needed to talk to her soulmate for possibly the last time when the city they’re on will be in ruins in a matter of seconds.

 

She remembered staring at the sky with the altitude rising and breaths falling shorter with each second.

 

She told him that she didn’t mind laying her life down today. “Where else can you get a view like this?” She wondered how clear blue the sky is and wished she could see it then. If only.

 

He looked at her. She saw from her peripheral vision but didn’t want to acknowledge it.

 

It’s for the best, she thought, even if she would never find out how it would feel like when he holds her close or if his hand fits in her perfectly or how would he react when he found out that she stole one of his shirts and had worn it whenever she missed him (which was often). 

 

She wished for it to happen, but it would never be. She’s a spy, he’s a soldier. They were never written in the stars.

 

.

 

With Ultron gone and they’re left to train the New Avengers, he found himself working with her once more.

 

He caught her staring at the walls more often than he thinks is healthy. He didn’t stop her, however, knowing full well that he wasn’t needed. His presence wasn’t what she wanted. He bitterly thought.

 

It’s sad, he thinks, how their whole relationship of trust seems to just float in the midst of big waves now - like there was nothing anchoring it and nothing toppling it over to sink. It’s just… there, but not really there.

 

He finds himself wishing he could be of use to her, but knowing he couldn’t, he left her be and turn his heart off. He didn’t need her if she didn’t need him.

 

.

 

She was sitting in the common room looking over progress reports on the new team when an alarm rang signalling that the team is needed for a mission. 

 

“Wheels up in twenty.”

 

“Last one there is doing the dishes for the whole week.”

 

“You’re on.”

 

“Catch you later, Grandpa Joe,” as she distanced away from him for a head start before zooming off and hearing him chuckle.

 

Yes, their daily banters are back, but there was something different - like a wall between their interactions, hindering them to be what they used to be before Ultron, before finding out he was her soulmate.

 

_Focus_ , she chastised himself. _Throw yourself in work because that drives everything out of your mind._

 

.

 

The building was on fire and Hill was on comm, telling everyone to get out.

 

The mission went south pretty quickly but he was fine. Well, except for a beating he took in his gut, possibly a couple of broken bones and not life threatening burns to a super soldier.

 

Making sure there was no civilian left that needed to be directed to a safer place, he make his way out when he heard a quiet sob coming from his ten o’clock. 

 

Rushing over, he saw a little girl with pigtails sitting with her knees drawn close. He tried to calm her down, but he knew it wasn’t an option when the structure of the building started falling apart. That only made the girl less willing to move from her place.

 

There was no time of trying to coax her out especially when he saw a pillar falling down on them. He acted upon his reflex, upon the idea of protecting people (and some dark side chastised him that his own soulmate didn’t need him anyways) and pushed the little girl aside.

 

He heard someone screamed his name. 

 

And then everything faded to black.

 

.

 

It's been less than five hours since they've been back from the mission and it took about an hour and two minutes to take Captain America out of the rubble.

 

She felt it was too long and she was anxious.

 

She never do anxious.

 

But the thought of losing him and losing Steve who makes her coffee on Sunday, Steve who offer her easy smiles whenever she needed it the most (he just seems to know), Steve who bought her random paperbacks he thought she'd like, Steve- 

 

It's just unbearable. It never crossed her mind. Until today.

 

Sitting beside his bed ridden self, she ignored the moisture threatening to flow out of her eyes. She almost lost him... without him never knowing what she felt about him.

 

She didn't want to think about how the dialogue they exchanged in the cemetery would haunt her for the rest of her life, how the color blue would never be an option for her to see, how she should live with the idea of him being gone.

 

No.

 

He's still alive. His heart monitor is beeping steadily. But she's too shaken to remember that they're mortals and they have time limits.

 

She fell asleep, exhausted and weary, right beside him, wishing he'd wake up soon because she needed his arms around her—no matter how selfish it was—to prove that he's still here and he's not a dream, he's real.

 

.

 

His bones ache and he's tired of fighting. He wanted to let go and never swim to the surface ever again.

 

But something inside him knew he has to go out there.

 

So the moment he came to and lights started blinding his vision, his mind flushed him with what happened before.

 

He didn't even have the chance to decipher his surrounding when he felt a pair of arms thrown around him.

 

"Don't ever do that to me again."

 

Natasha. 

 

She's crying. He could feel the skimpy hospital gown turning wet around the edges of his neck where she laid down her head.

 

He was at lost of words, his throat is hoarse and he realized he needs to drink.

 

But having her here, no matter how selfish it might be, is everything he's always wanted.

 

So he weakly lifted an arm to pull her close and soothingly run his hand through her hair.

 

He cherished the moment, uncertain, not knowing if she'll leave him once more like she did in the cemetery. He didn't think he'd be able to go through the same heartbreak ever again.

 

If this was the only way he'd be able to feel her close, he would've let ruins fall on him, he chuckled inwardly.

 

"Nat—"

 

She puts her lips on him, drowning all the words he wanted to tell her. _I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm dumb. I love you._

 

She pulled back and that was the first time (and definitely not the last) he saw the most beautiful shade of green. That's when he know she was his and he was hers. She accepted him.

 

He smiled weakly. "I love you too."

 

A pause.

 

"We're both stupid, you know."

 

There were tear stains on her cheeks, her eyes were a little red from all her crying and her hair a mess. But to him, she still looked beautiful and so, so strong and he wondered what he'd ever done to deserve her.

 

Tracing his thumb across the apple of her cheek, he pulled her close. She looked right into his clear blue skies, thinking about how foolish they both are to try go against the universe. All those time he saved her and she saved him, catching over reruns of crappy telly, dates in a random diner and sparring in the gym at an ungodly hour, she felt the need to utter the words, like he needs to know right now, at this moment, "I...love you."

 

Testing the word in her lips, it felt foreign, but it felt right saying it to him. She loved him. Always have, and she's going to try always will.

 

He smiled, "I know,” and closed the gap once more.

 

 


End file.
